


Hunter and Prey

by Mithen



Category: Graveyard Book - Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before the events of <em>The Graveyard Book</em>, Silas is hunted by an implacable force.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunter and Prey

There was blood on his chin, and on his hands, and there was thunder and lightning in the skies above him and in his heart, and there was something chasing him.

Chasing _him,_ the thought was unbelievable.  He was the hunter, not the hunted;  the predator, not the prey.  He was the one who killed and fed on God's sheep, the shadow who had turned his back on God and humanity, lost beyond redemption and hope.  And yet there was _something_ stalking him through this night, though the abandoned and overgrown garden where he had taken his latest victim.  Something was breathing close behind him. 

Something was coming for him.

He felt a panic beyond reason clasp at his heart;  he stumbled, his inhuman sure-footedness abandoning him, roots tearing at his feet.  Driven beyond fear, he whirled to confront his pursuer, hissing final defiance.

The snarl froze in his mouth at the sight of a mere woman in a shawl, her mouth set in a disapproving line below a nose slightly too long for her face. 

"Hmph," she said.  "Silas.  I have a message for you."  Her voice was heavy with a Slavic accent, and heavier still with dislike.

Silas blinked at her.  Was _this_ his terrifying pursuer, the being that had struck fear into his heart?  The thunder rumbled overhead uncertainly.

Her mouth pursed even tighter.  "Do you have no manners, young man?  Speak when you are spoken to!"

Her voice was a goad, and he felt his hackles rising.  "Do not tempt fate, woman!  You know not the danger you are in!"  He could fall on her, snuff out her frail life as he had so many before.  Self-disgust tore at him.  "There are monsters in this world the likes of which you cannot ken."

At that, she threw back her head and laughed, a surprisingly beautiful sound with a yelping edge to it.  "Monsters," she scoffed.  "You're no monster.  You're nothing but a spoiled child, wallowing in self-misery.  I've come to put an end to that."

The fear was suddenly back, irrational and undeniable.  "You think to make me pay for my crimes?  I am beyond payment, beyond redemption.  My soul is stained black beyond all hope of salvation, stained with the blood of--"

She slapped him. 

The slap stung like lightning, rocked his head backward.  "You are ridiculous," she said.  Then she drew herself up, pulling her shawl around her, her posture formal.  "Silas," she said, "You are summoned to the Honour Guard."

Her words struck him harder than her blow had.  "What?"  He stammered.  He held out his hands, still streaked with scarlet.  "That's impossible.  I'm not...I don't deserve that.  I'm not worthy."  It seemed an understatement of truly Biblical proportions.

The woman sniffed sharply.  "That's the odd thing about Grace, Silas.  Our worthiness has nothing to do with it."  She looked at him, her face lit by the intermittent lightning, austere and unbending.  "I have delivered your summons.  It is time for you to put aside your self-indulgent misery and be something better than you are."

"I don't know how," whispered Silas.

"Do not lie to me," she said.  "And do not lie to yourself.  That is a luxury the Honour Guard is not permitted."  She turned away.

"It's so easy, then?" he called after her, irrational anger lacing his voice.  "All that blood, all those lives...and one day it's all just washed away?  I can be pure and innocent once more?"

She looked back at him.  "You think this is _so easy_, boy?  How charming.  And it is not innocence the Honour Guard needs."  Her teeth flashed briefly in the darkness; it was not a smile.  "When you are ready to accept your responsibility, seek me out.  My name is Miss Lepescu."  She turned and loped into the shadows, her form blurring into shaggy silver hair, a broad-hackled form.

Silas watched after her, long after she was gone.  Eventually the rain came down:  one drop, then two, then a torrent.  It plastered his hair to his forehead, soaked through his clothes.

He held his hands out and watched the rain wash the blood from them.


End file.
